Hello! This week has been amazing. Lots of work going on here. We have been doing baptismal interviews for people and it has been amazing to hear their stories and learn how they found the gospel. We also shared a message with this incredible Brazilian family who shared their story with us about how the missionaries never gave up on them.
Another sister shared an experience where she and her companion were going contacting and one of them felt inspired to visit a person across the city who they were teaching. Her companion protested, because the person would still be at school, but they decided to go anyway. When they got there sure enough that person wasn't there. Her companion kind of looked at her like, "I told you so", but they were already there. Going over to a boy on the side of the street they asked, "Do you know someone who could use God?" The boy pointed at a home across the street so they walked over and gave the traditional greeting of clapping and calling. The woman answered the door and let them in. Two weeks later she was baptized. At her baptism she revealed that she never would have opened the door if the sisters hadn't called her name. Afterward the sisters shared they had never called her name, since they didn't know it. The lady said when they had called out, she had heard her name. Clearly, the Lord knew her and knew she was ready.
I have been reading a lot in Moses chapter one and it's incredible how personal the Lord was as He trained him. Moses beheld the creations of God and came to the conclusion that "Man is nothing". However, we know that's not the case, God proclaimed "Man is everything". He showed Moses how important we all are to him, and his plan for us. When Satan came tempting Moses, he actually did it twice in his command. First to convince him he was a son of man, and second to worship him. One of the first things we teach people, as missionaries, is that they have a divine potential. Satan wants people to deny this one truth, at all costs, because if they believe it, they might just live up to it. Because Moses knew who he was, he was able to discern between the good and evil and cast aside Satan's deceptions. It wasn't easy for him to get Satan to leave but eventually the truth prevailed.
We have gotten lots of service done this week and helped a couple families move. We are slowly having our covid restrictions lifting so we can eat with members and we don't have to wear masks (unless the family wants us to, of course). We have also begun tracting apartments so we're excited about that because they look like they could have some high potential.
Some fun stuff. We went to a cul-de-sac of smoke. It's where tons of families come together and have a meat cook-off. There were probably about 50 different meat dishes and they had the fire department judge. It was their 4th annual smoke competition, and it was a big deal, apparently. Half the guys looked super tired because they hadn't gotten any sleep the previous night since they had to check their meat every couple of hours.
For p-day, today, we went to Thanksgiving point, to the Ashton Gardens. It's pretty amazing - gardens with statues of Christ and the first vision. We are really blessed we can go because it’s in our area, and they let us in for free. Yay! These pictures are from our time there.
From,
Elder Cluff
